Literary Terminology –

Drama

— a particular type or category of writing or literature.

•Writing-persuasive, expository, personal narrative, etc.

•Literature-fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry, etc.

Genre

— a narrative in which situations and characters are invented by the writer. *Fictional work may be based on fact or experience. Historical fiction is set against a backdrop of history and contains many details about the period in which it is set. *Fictional works include short stories, novels, and dramas.

Fiction

Historical fiction

Elements of Drama

•Aside•Soliloquoy•Characters•Setting•Plot•Theme•Dialogue•Acts & Scenes•Stage Directions

— a story intended to be performed before an audience by actors on a stage. *The script may include stage directions –descriptions of the action, setting, and scenery. *A drama may be divided into acts-a major unit of a drama and scenes-a subdivision of an act used to, indicate changes in location or the passage of time. Examples include comedy and tragedy.*Dialogue—conversation between the characters; helps reveal the plot and characters of the play

Drama

Comedy—a light humorous play with a happy ending

Tragedy—a play in which the protagonist comes to a tragic end.

Comedy Tragedy

Aside

— Words spoken by an actor directly to the audience, which are not "heard" by the other characters on stage during a play.

In Shakespeare's Othello, Iago voices his inner thoughts a number of times as "asides" for the play's audience.

Soliloquy — A speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by other characters on the stage. If there are no other characters present, the soliloquy represents the character thinking aloud.

Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech is an example.

—a person, animal, or a natural force presented as a person appearing in a literary work.

Character

Main character—central to the story and characterized fullyMinor character—displays few personality traits and is used only to help develop the story

Dynamic character—undergoes change Static character—does not undergo change; remains the same

Round character—shows varied and sometimes contradictory traitsFlat character—reveal only one personality trait

Character TypesMain character

Minor character

Dynamic characterStatic character

Round character

Flat character

Antagonist—a character or force in conflict with the main character, or protagonist.

—the central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative poem.

•In accomplishing his or her objective, the protagonist is hindered by some opposing force either human (one of Batman's antagonists is The Joker), animal (Moby Dick is Captain Ahab's antagonist in Herman Melville's Moby Dick), or natural (the snow [cold] is the antagonist which must be overcome in Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”).

Antagonist

Protagonist

Characterization—The means by which a writer reveals a character’s personality.

Methods of characterization may include:• Direct Characterization:• The author makes direct statements

about his character’s performance. • Indirect Characterization• (1) by what the character says about

himself or herself; • (2) by what others reveal about the

character; and • (3) by the character's own actions.

Characterization

—the time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem occur.

Setting

*The author’s choice of setting can reveal his purpose in telling a story by :

•Creating a mood or atmosphere•Illuminating (shines light on/reveals things about)the characters.•Unifying or organizing the plot•Pointing beyond itself to a deeper symbolic meaning

Mood—the emotional feeling of the setting, something like tone, but specifically related to setting (the reader’s general feeling from the story.)

The atmosphere is the dominant mood or feeling conveyed by a piece of writing. •A work may contain a mood that is gloomy, scary, calm, peaceful, suspenseful, to name a few, depending on the author's treatment of the work.

Mood

—the sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, play or narrative poem. Consists of five elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution(denouement).

A plot may include flashback or it may include a subplot that is a mirror image of the main plot. For example, in Shakespeare's, "King Lear," the relation ship between the Earl of Gloucester and his sons mirrors the relationship between Lear and his daughters.

Plot

Plot is the literary element that describes the structure of a story. It shows arrangement of events and actions within a story.

PLOTLINE

ExpositionResolution/Denoument

Risin

g Ac

tion

Climax

Falling Action

Narrative Hook/Conflict Introduced

Exposition: the start of the story, the situation before the action starts

Rising Action: the series of conflicts and crisis in the story that lead to the climax

Climax: the turning point, the most intense moment—either mentally or in action

Falling Action: all of the action which follows the climax

Resolution: the conclusion, the tying together of all of the threads

Plot Components

Narrative Hook: grabs the reader’s attention: the point at which the author catches our attention and establishes the basic conflict the story will eventually resolve.

—A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem.

External—conflict between two characters, between a character and nature, between a character and society

•In Shakespeare’s drama Julius Caesar Cassius has a conflict with Caesar because he fears he is becoming too ambitious, so he decides Caesar must be killed.

Internal—conflict between two elements struggling for mastery within a person’s mind

•In Julius Caesar, Brutus faces an internal conflict because he is struggling with whether or not he should join the conspiracy against Caesar, his best friend

Conflict

Plot: ConflictConflict is the dramatic struggle between two forces in a story. Without conflict, there is no plot.

Plot: Types of Conflict

Character vs Nature

Character vs Society

Character vs Self

Character vs Character

—the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to convey in a literary work. The theme provides an answer to the question What is the work about? Some works have a stated theme, which is expressed directly. More works have an implied theme, which is revealed gradually through events, dialogue, or description. A literary work may have more than one theme.Concepts to remember about theme:• Expresses the author’s opinion.• Raises a question about human nature.• The meaning of human experience.• May or may not agree with your own beliefs.• A piece of literature may have both a subject and a theme.• The subject is the specific topic of the selection.• The theme is the generalization about life at large.

Theme

There are too many possible themes to recite them all in this document. Each literary work carries its own theme(s).

•The theme of Tuesdays With Morrie is death and dying. •Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter contains many themes, among which are madness, sin and guilt . Unlike plot which deals with the action of a work, theme concerns itself with a work's message or contains the general idea of a work.

—to conclude by reason an idea, attitude, tone which is not directly stated by the author; A conclusion based on facts or circumstances; to draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented.•For example, advised not to travel alone in temperatures exceeding fifty degrees below zero, the man in Jack London's "To Build a Fire" sets out anyway. One may infer arrogance from such an action.•When a multiple-choice question asks for an inference to be drawn from a passage, the most direct, most reasonable inference is the safest answer choice.

Inference

— reason why characters do what they do

Extrinsic Motivation – motivation derived from some physical reward (i.e. money, power, lust)

Intrinsic Motivation – motivation derived from an internal reward (i.e. knowledge, pride, spiritual or emotional peace/wellbeing)

Motivation

Additional Literary Elements of Drama

—a figure of speech in which one thing is compared to another by being spoken of as though it were that thing; “ . . . a sea of troubles.”.•Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," has this to say about the moral condition of his parishioners:

There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm and big with thunder;

The comparison here is between God's anger and a storm.

Metaphor

—words that appeal to the senses

Imagery of light and darkness is repeated many times in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Consider an example from Act I, Scene V:

“O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!It seems she hangs upon the cheek of nightLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;”

Romeo praises Juliet by saying that she appears more radiant than the brightly lit torches in the hall. He says that at night her face glows like a bright jewel shining against the dark skin of an African. Through the contrasting images of light and dark, Romeo portrays Juliet’s beauty.

Imagery

—a brief reference to a person, place, event, or passage in a work of literature or the Bible assumed to be sufficiently well known to be recognized by the reader.

•“ I am Lazarus, come from the dead.” --T.S. Eliot

Allusion

—language used for descriptive effect, in order to convey ideas or emotions. Figurative expressions are not literally true but express some truth beyond the literal level. In literature (especially prominent in poetry), a way of saying one thing and meaning something else.

•Take, for example, this line by Robert Burns, My love is a red, red rose. Clearly Mr. Burns does not really mean that he has fallen in love with a red, aromatic, many-petalled, long, thorny-stemmed plant. He means that his love is as sweet and as delicate as a rose. While, figurative language provides a writer with the opportunity to write imaginatively, it also tests the imagination of the reader, forcing the reader to go below the surface of a literary work into deep, hidden meanings.

Figurative language

—The use of hints or clues to suggest what action will happen next.

In Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," Romeo's expression of fear in Act 1, scene 4 foreshadows the catastrophe to come:

I fear too early; for my mind misgivesSome consequence yet hanging in the stars Shall

bitterly begin his fearful dateWith this night's revels and expire the termOf a despised life closed in my breastBy some vile forfeit of untimely death.But He that hath the steerage of my course, Direct

my sail! On, lusty gentlemen.

Foreshadowing

—a contrast or discrepancy between appearance and reality; a method of humorous or sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words is the opposite of their usual meaning; the contrast between what seems to be real and what actually is real. Irony takes many forms.

Irony

There are three types of irony:

*dramatic irony- the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not.

*situational irony-an occurrence is the opposite of what is expected

*verbal irony-the meaning of a statement is the reverse of what is said

Symbolism — is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them meanings that are different from their literal sense.

Generally, it is an object representing another to give it an entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant. Sometimes, however, an action, an event or a word spoken by someone may have a symbolic value. For instance, “smile” is a symbol of friendship. Similarly, the action of someone smiling at you may stand as a symbol of the feeling of affection which that person has for you.

Symbols do shift their meanings depending on the context they are used in. “A chain”, for example, may stand for “union” as well as “imprisonment”. Thus, symbolic meaning of an object or an action is understood by when, where and how it is used. It also depends on who reads them.

Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights presents almost every character, house, surroundings and events in a symbolic perspective. The word “Wuthering”, which means stormy, represents the wild nature of its inhabitants. The following lines allow us to look into the symbolic nature of two characters:

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it; I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath a source of little visible delight, but necessary.”

The phrase “foliage of leaves” for Linton is a symbol for his fertile and civilized nature. On the contrary, Heathcliff is likened to an “eternal rock” which symbolizes his crude and unbendable nature.

Connotation — refers to a meaning that is implied by a word apart from the thing which it describes explicitly. Words carry cultural and emotional associations or meanings in addition to their literal meanings or denotations. For instance, “Wall Street” literally means a street situated in Lower Manhattan but connotatively it refers to “wealth” and “power”.

Metaphors are words that connote meanings that go beyond their literal meanings. Shakespeare in his Sonnet 18 says:

“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day”

Here, the phrase “a Summer’s Day” implies the fairness of his beloved. Similarly, John Donne says in his poem “The Sun Rising”:

“She is all states, and all princes, I.”

This line suggests the speaker’s belief that he and his beloved are wealthier than all the states, kingdoms, and rulers in the whole world because of their love.

Denotation

— is generally defined as literal or dictionary meanings of a word in contrast to its connotative or associated meanings.

An example of denotation literary term can be found in the poetic work of Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall”:

“And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each.”

In the above lines, the word “wall” is used to suggest a physical boundary which is its denotative meaning but it also implies the idea of “emotional barrier”.